BREAKFAST IN TUSCANY

Tuesday, 30 December 2014

Hell's Teeth! Entertaining the thought of a Costa Coffee on the Campo in Siena delights the company and almost induces apoplexy in me.

Sorry the beard went feral through shock.

Costa
Coffee on the Campo!? The very thought was a corkscrew to my heart.
My excited companions however were ready to decamp from the shady
corner of Spadaforte and hotfoot over to the sunny side seeking what
exactly? A milky coffee-like substance dispensed at 4€ a bucket?
Off-the-shelf universally standard offerings and minimal social
interaction? Mistaking the font of 'La Costa Caffè'
for Costa Coffee was an error born of cognitive dissonance – the
brain's internal editor blanking out the foreign and homing in on the
familiar. Of course, globalised business knows that most of us prefer
to stay firmly in our comfort zones. The Polish Food stand on
Florence market knew it too, selling cabbage stuffed dumplings to
culinary conservatives as “Polish Ravioli”. Italy, the land of
gelato,
has a Ben & Jerry's right at it's Renaissance heart for the
geographically displaced or discombobulated.

Sometimes
it's impossible to iron out the discomforting dissonance as evidenced
by the guests so convinced they were forced to eat what was put in
front of them and then ripped off for 25€ a head that they only ate
in McDonalds for the rest of their (shortened) stay. What they had in
fact experienced was a fixed-price menu and the quasi-hostile
reception was just the usual Italian lack of schooled customer
service insincerities. Globalisation means expectations of uniformity
and disavowal of any notion that they just might 'do
things differently over there'.

Well,
some things at least. Zara, H&M, Primark and the like have
arrived to chew the last few Euro off Italian high streets (and
spirit it off to the latest supranational tax-haven du
jour) dismantling Italian
manufacturing in the process and de-skilling the population. Even the
famed Galleria in Milan - once the preserve of bespoke Italian
quality - is now home to McDonalds and Autogrill. Socialism we were
told would lead us to grey uniformity and lack of choice, but we
seem to have arrived there by other means as we race to the bottom.
5€ blouses are flying off the shelves and pretty much straight into
landfill.

La Costa Pizzeria & Gelato

But
I digress; clearly the idea of a Costa on the Campo was a
preposterous chimera. Although they smother the UK like a rash, Italy
has so far resisted the global coffee chains. To begin with good
coffee is ubiquitous and relatively cheap. Even on the Campo you're
looking at less than 2€ for a cappuccino. Italians would rightly
baulk at standard UK prices; UK mark-ups on coffee are usurious.
Everyone knows those kinds of prices are reserved for Caffè Florian
on Piazza San Marco, Venice. (No whining please! It costs a lot to
put on that particular show in that particular location!) Secondly,
Italians are puzzled by leather armchairs and dralon sofas. In Italy
coffee is an on-the-hoof affair and nobody is encouraged to linger. Get a prosecco or spritz if ya wanna stay. Thirdly, selling a facsimile Italy
to tourists would be the apogee of post modern irony – a sort of safe space, a refuge from the real Italy -
right at the heart of Italy! If you want ersatz Italy why not
go to Venice, Las Vegas whose website tells me I can take an
“infamous gandola(sic) ride” or head to celebrity
chef Mario Batali for a burger?! An infamous Italian burger
presumably?! There's bound to be a Starbucks somewhere on its
chlorinated grand canal.

Wednesday, 27 November 2013

Snow, blizzards & stuck indoors at 600 metres altitude puts a dent in the mood of a slightly stir-crazy Jonnie Falafel.The
thick duvet of snow laid over the landscape doesn't help my natural
tendency to indolence! I want to stay holed up in this cosy apartment
- tiny enough to be heated in it's entirety by a single wood burner –
doing very little save concocting vast vats of soup from scrapings
from the dwindling larder. Dried mushrooms, a few jars of sugo, some
bottled vegetables, sprouting potatoes and gradually dehydrating
zucchini. An adorable friend Filippo came to lunch on Sunday bringing
a huge bouquet of ornamental cabbages. Two more days of this and we
may have to soup them. No benevolent soul could get here to dine
today.

The
wind whines and complains around the chimney cowels and the sharp
edges of the roof, but the snow tamps everything else. The valleys –
giant echo bowls – normally amplify the sound of planes 7,000 mts
above, but even that's muffled now. There are bats hanging under the
loggia day and night, and little yellow finches pressing themselves
into the gaps between the wall and the drainpipes beneath the roof
over-hang. Sudden gusts of wind ruffle their feathers. Preoccupied
with survival, they have nothing to sing about now. In the eerie
silence one is acutely aware of the dull crunch of snow underfoot
when venturing out to replenish the logs. Am I being followed? Stop.
The footsteps stop. Look. Nothing. One set of steps traced through
the powder white.

Cabbage Bouquet

The
fluorescent-tube harshness of the light lends a drab hue to the stone
houses. Those seduced here by the summer sun wouldn't recognise them.
They felt these same stones exude heat on summer nights, they've
witnessed the swift amber dawns, lazed in the syrupy late afternoon
light or dined under a moon bloodied and pink. You wouldn't believe
the moon now, with it's frosty unwelcoming stare.

Indolence
indulges melancholy. Or is it the other way round? I don't want to read, I don't want to watch
DVDs. I don't really feel inspired to do much of anything except
stick close to the stove and brood. I might want to listen to the
Tiger Lillies to ramp up the mood but instead listen to the churning
mind raking over the coals to rekindle the embers of uncomfortable
memories – disappointments, losses, former friends, mistakes and
every rueful morsel of disgraceful behaviour gets chewed over.
Parades of faces from another lifetime. What finally happened to her?
What must they have thought of me? Why did I do nothing? It's too
late to say.....

It's
not like I don't have plenty to think about. I should be focused on
our reboot of the mission next season which involves some big changes
at Tenuta Savorgnano. We're off to England in just over a week and I
should be planning for that, but I can't think about it today, when
the mood colours everything. It just leads me to sour assessments of
the impending consumer orgy we call Christmas. Did anyone read George Monbiot's recent article which mentioned gifts such as wi-fi
controlled electric kettles, mahogany skateboards, souped-up cuckoo
clocks and specially packaged balls of garden twine at £16 a piece!!
And don't get me started on the mad economic system sustained only by
spending on fripperies. It conjures the image of bored zombies
plodding towards eco-doom.

Snow hits the hills

Paul
says I should ring the Samaritans to whinge about my two houses in
Tuscany. A friend says when life offers you lemons, make lemonade. I
can laugh at the irony of the former but the latter riles me. It just
sounds too off pat 'self-helpish' Straight from one of those books
with strident covers pedalling mendacious pseudo-psychology. Think
of opportunities and not obstacles. Oh purleeese! Pass the sick bag
Alice.

I
was the kind of kid who moped over moons and sat on the doorstep
swathed in an old Naval overcoat to watch the rain detach bits of
rough-cast from the house. I was given to wandering around the local
cemetery to ensure the equitable distribution of flowers and almost
weeping when I encountered a child's grave at the awful unfairness of
it all. Children got slightly more than their due shares. Melancholy
is my friend I don't want ironing out of my character. It's a
masochistic disposition, a sweet malady, an exquisite pain. It's
natural, it's not depression, doesn't require Prozac and is written
through my soul like a stick of Blackpool rock.

Wednesday, 6 November 2013

For this
month long jaunt through Europe Dylan has changed his modus
operandi. He's eschewing the big barns in favour of a series of
mini residencies in more intimate venues. This is the final night of
a three night stand in Milans 2,340 capacity Teatro degli Arcimboldi
in the University district.

Milan Duomo

I can
appreciate that Dylan anoraks like me love it when he plays wildly
varying sets each night, but this time around the advance web chatter
is all about static set lists. In truth however, despite the
well-earned reputation for winging it, the set lists have been more
fixed for a few years now. Some miss the frisson of "anything
could happen" extemporisation, but in compensation Dylan has
been turning in solidly professional shows like this one for some
time now.

The
difference this time around that he's largely ditched the greatest
hits. For me this is good news, for the casual fan it might be
irksome. Anyone hoping for Like A Rolling Stone or Knocking on
Heaven's Door will be sorely disappointed. Not content to coast on
the 1960's legacy the bias is very firmly on more recent material.
There's even a most unDylanesque plug for his latest album Tempest
with no less than five of the nineteen songs drawn from that album
alone.

The
proceedings began abruptly almost bang on time. Suddenly the lights
were out, no ceremony no intro. A few chords from rhythm guitarist
Stu Kimball and out moseyed the maestro behind his band to a
thunderous almost ecstatic welcome. A mixture of young and old, this
might be the most enthusiastic crowd I've witnessed at a Dylan gig
for many moons. Dylan stood for a few seconds at the central mic
scratching his head and the band launched into a country-rockabilly
Things Have Changed. He opened with this the last time I saw
him two years ago in Firenze. The difference this time: he didn't
mangle it. Vocally he was on focused and on form with not a single
lyric flub and clear enunciation. The seal barking of the openers of
the last ten years nowhere in evidence.

She
Belongs To Me was up next. Set to the beat of a martial drum and
with some melifluous guitar from Charlie Sexton this was gorgeous.
Dylans vocal floated atop a cloud of rhythm and he played an
understated and melodic harmonica solo that brought rapturous
applause. Unencumbered by any other instrument Dylan really can
concentrate on wringing musicality out of his delightfully eccentric
harmonica style. I'm sorry if you miss his guitar. I prefer it this
way.

Moving to
the grand piano for a calypso inflected Beyond Here Lies Nothing,
Bob wriggled and wiggled as he stood to play - it was that
funky. The arrangement elevated a fairly pedestrian string of cliches
into something worth listening to. I shuffled a bit in appreciation.
Remaining at the piano for What Good Am I? (a worthy song
that's been gathering dust twenty years until brought out for this
tour) it suddenly struck me that this was the quietest Dylan gig I've
ever witnessed... on stage I mean. The melody was carried by the band
on this one with Dylan playing a counterpoint on piano: most
accomplished.

Inside the plush Teatro degli Arcimboldi

I could've
lived without Duquesne Whistle. The weakest song on Tempest,
it's monotonous riff is interminable. Quite why he exhumed the minor
country waltz Waiting For You (written for a film soundtrack)
remains a mystery wrapped in an enigma. With their 1940's feel, maybe
these songs were channelling radio programmes of his boyhood? Maybe
it's the legendary perversity? I admire the chutzpah, but there was a
definite drop in energy levels. This wasn't remedied by Pay In
Blood an excellent song in it's lilting Tempest arrangement which
was delivered here as a quieter number with a crescendo at the end of
each verse that abruptly drops off the cliff. It just didn't work.
It's an angry song, "Another politician pumping out the piss",
but Dylan demurred from, "You bastards! I'm supposed to respect
you?", with a lyric change "My conscience is clear, what
about yours?". It's horses for courses. Tangled Up In Blue
was notable for a new set of lyrics and for Dylan's piano playing
which was the dominant instrument on this one. A very strong
Lovesick with flawless harmonica work redeemed the the first
set. Dylan spoke for the only time of the evening to tell us there
would be a break.

He returned
with High Water (for Charlie Patton) which began with some
banjo plucking and got progressively heavier. A simply stunning
piano driven Simple Twist of Fate followed. Musically this was
the business. And then a clutch of recent songs sealed this as one of
the best Dylan concerts I've seen in years. The rueful Forgetful
Heart underscored by a bowed double bass and with some plaintive
harmonica work was spare and intense. He reproduced the Tempest
version of Scarlet Town perfectly. This sinister little number
was enhanced by a great baritone and a vocal dexterity he hasn't
mustered in years. Ditto Soon After Midnight where I swear he
banged out Blueberry Hill on the piano during the middle
eight! Finally the closer Long and Wasted Years is without
exaggeration the best and most dramatic single performance in my 35
years of Dylan watching. Exhilarating! The encores All Along The
Watchtower (complete with jazz
piano interlude)and Blowing In The Wind were
crowd pleasers that should be dispensed with and I thought of leaving
then but I hung back....

Because
earlier I had a close encounter with genius. Bob and I made the same
mistake in trying to see Leonardo's The Last Supper during
closing hours. There he was ouside the church of Santa Maria della
Gracia.

"Bob,
do you think you could play It's All Over Now Baby Blue on
Monday night?"

"Mmm.
I'll see what I can do."

What he
actually did was a mighty fine Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall in the
middle of the second set. Most unexpected. Okay Bob, I'll settle for
that.

Thursday, 19 September 2013

Is the Southern Macho Male a Myth? Intrepid (mis)anthropologist Jonnie Falafel concludes his three and a half year study down among Tuscan men.

Shiny
skinned and freshly showered they filed to the top table trailing the
faint scent of soap and hair gel. Happy, healthy lads probably all
under twenty five sporting designer wear - Lacoste, D&G and
Hilfiger - but nothing too flashy. Smart skinny fit low-slung jeans
revealing underwear waistbands and polo shirts in pastels with the
collars turned up. Six guys comfortable in their own skins, quietly
confident. They're talking about food and they're talking about their
mothers with that Tuscan growl so low it emanates from the testes and
not the diaphragm. Think forty a day for twenty years. That's the
effect. Friends begin to arrive.

"Hello
my dearest boys!" exclaims one holding out his left cheek for a
kiss. One looks at his reflection in the mirror and begins preening
his delicately coiffed locks. "How does it look Marco?",
"Carino, molto carino," sighs his friend. This doesn't
really have an English equivalent, but I suppose it would be
something like 'it looks lovely' - in the way you might say a puppy
looks lovely. Once everyone is assembled a strange thing happens (to
English eyes). Twelve men are all touching each other and talking -
hands on knees, chests, around shoulders. Nobody has yet drunk a drop
and - I kid you not - one of these angelic looking young men is
sitting on the lap of another and they are talking with their hands
on each others shoulders. Nobody comments or thinks this is any more
unusual than another lad who is rubbing his mates back.

You
might imagine this is drag night at the Bearpit Club, Sansepolcro,
but no... this is our local pizzeria and this lot are all part of a
local football team and odds on at least ten of them will be 100%
conventionally heterosexual. (One will be gay all the way and the
other won't know if he's in Debenhams or Lewis's!)

Now
I've heard - nay I've seen studies on the behaviour of young British
men and apparently there are similarities these days. The way male
lives are played out has changed enormously over the past twenty
years all over Europe. Masculinity is morphing, becoming 'sissyfied'.
British men of my generation are still generally uncomfortable
witnessing this sort of behaviour, but it's normal to younger men.
The difference here though, is that older Italian men are just as
kissy/touchy-feely . In my first week in Italy I had my British three
foot exclusion zone breached on several occasions by over-friendly
men. Now I'm quite used to a neck massage while engaged in
conversation about the outrageous price of tomatoes down at the local
co-op. I've come a long way since since the extreme discomfort of a
conversation with a neighbour who had one hand over my solar plexus
and the other on my coccyx.

You'll
be familiar with the cool unapproachable metrosexuality of the
Milanese male - sartorial sharpness, manicured geometrically razored
precision sideburns, eyebrows 'threaded' to within an inch of their
life, moisturised and polished – the first time I stepped off the
train in Milan I felt like Wurzel Gummidge and as far as the locals
were concerned I might as well have been. I am so
low maintenance!

You
see the same sort of thing in Manchester and Soho. It confuses the
gaydar - you can't tell the gays from the straights any more. But just
like their rougher Tuscan compatriots they drink cocktails for
aperitivi. The main aperitivo is called 'spritz' (but not as we know
it, Captain) a day-glow orange concoction of aperol and prosecco
drunk through a straw. It's looks hideous, it tastes worse and is a
criminal waste of prosecco. But talk about camp. You see scores of
men sitting in bars in the early evening lifting straws to their
lips. I wonder if anything as effete as this happens on Old Compton
Street or Canal Street where the last time I looked they were all
swilling bottled Czech beer at all hours? Maybe I'm out-of-date and
pink gin's in.

'Man
dates' figure big here too. It's not uncommon to see two men having
dinner together. Bars are populated by posses of men. You may argue
that Britain was the same when it had pubs, but British male pub
culture seemed more driven by misogyny, and bonds of affection - if
there be any - well supressed. Italy really is a homosocial
culture where men maintain very tactile and affectionate friendships
over a lifetime. I don't know what young British men talk about in
pubs these days, but it used to be a limited range of things –
football, women, cars and how to get from A to B. The Italian
repertoire embraces much more... Food figures big, cooking and eating.
Their mothers (There is absolutely no stigma to being a mummy's boy
at 45! Sadly the economic reality is that many stay at home
especially if unmarried). The latest haircut. Fashion... and of
course they do follow football too but it doesn't dominate discourse.

Gay Map of Europe

Yanko Tsvetkov's gay map in the mapping stereotypes series characterises Italy as
"Straight Homos"! I don't know if the supposed
'homoflexibility' of Italian men is mythical, but the only evidence I
have to go on is an ostensibly hetero neighbour who turned up in
budgie smugglers and sat there legs akimbo in something like normal
conversation, occasionally scratching his groin. The signals were
ambiguous because furtling around in the nether regions is a pastime
among Italian men – who, by the way, also see nothing amiss in just
peeing at the roadside. Let it all hang out, anywhere! Maybe the
fault is in my receiver rather than their transmitters?

Evidently a Southern Man

So
is the Southern Macho Male just a myth? Well, not entirely. The gay
one's are bucking the trend. Muscle bound and moustachioed they
wouldn't be seen dead supping a spritz or doing anything else so
suspect.
Maybe in Milan or Turin gay men are confident to express exactly who
they are, but it seems to be different down here in Tuscany. Along
with a 'hyper-closetedness' – i.e. Don't mention the war within
earshot of anyone – there's a tendency to signify traditional
masculinity in appearance and behaviour. Bears have cornered the
market in this little bit of Italy. Body bulk and body hair are what
count. Given the amount of time spent in the gym I don't know how
anybody has the time or energy for sex.

A
bear friend was showing me his profile on Scruff the day (Scruff is
one of those geo-locational apps for chaps who like chaps that helps
you root out where other bears are hiding in the Tuscan woods). You
could list yourself in a few categories, 'Bear', 'Leather',
'Althlete/Jock' and 'Geek'. I asked him what category I'd be in.
"Geek" he answered without a moments hesitation, a bit to
quickly for my liking. Oh well, for a pasty Northern European with a
body as smooth as a baby's bum, I suppose it's a niche.

Sunday, 1 September 2013

"We're
thinking of booking, but I've read about the insects. Will there be
insects?"

Biting my
tongue I resisted, "It's Italy, it's August, 36 degrees as we
speak, we live on forested hills. You don't need a crystal ball..."
opting instead for, "insects, good or bad in your book?"

"Can't
stand creepy crawlies. On Trip Advisor it says there are lots of
insects."

And do you
know what? It does in fact say this on Trip Advisor - but in one of
the most glowing reviews we've received from a wildlife enthusiast
who loved to photograph butterflies, moths and beetles. One gleans
what one gleans from any review I suppose.

Tenuta Savorgnano: Mattia Marzotto

Trip
Advisor has been on my mind a lot lately for one reason or another.
Guests all mention it. It's review season and sometimes it feels as
if a Trip Advisor email lands in the inbox hourly. Our reviews are
universally good so there's nothing to complain about there. It's the
other emails urging me to become a star reviewer by writing just one
more review. Or asking me to apply for window stickers to announce to
the hordes that happen to be passing our mountain hideaway that we
have a Trip Advisor Certificate of Excellence. Mmm. Or sending me
code to put a Trip Advisor logo on the website, blog or embedded in
emails. The owls eyes are everywhere. Almost every restaurant, shop,
B&B and hotel I pass! What next? A Trip Advisor logo tattooed on
my forehead? And now it's linked to Facebook, so I'm informed
whenever one of my contacts updates their Trip Advisor travel map or
writes a review!

Some emails
'update' me on places I've merely perused on Trip Advisor. Their
algorithms are set so that if I click on other reviews by guests
who've reviewed us, they update me on that place everytime it gets a
new review! Confession time. I occasionally check out the competion
or places run by folks I know. My curiosity unearthed an intersting
fact. Unfair negative reviews are common. How do I know they are
unfair? Because they breach the Trip Advisor guidelines for
reviewers. Reviews that actually state the reviewer never stayed.
Reviews that compare one establishment unfavourably with another in
it's locality and poor assessments based on factors proprietors have
no control over such as the weather.

For
example, one review of a Yorkshire B&B was based on a enquiry
phonecall by someone who called again to actually book but had been
pipped at the post by subsequent caller. (How often we get enquiries
from people who say they want to book but don't follow through. How
long should one hold dates for people who simply don't respond?) It
accused the proprietor of lying in order to accept a more lucrative
booking! Another review of a place on the Italian Island of Ischia
rated it two out of five because it rained during the stay! These are
clearly unfair and yet Trip Advisor allows them to stand.

I spoke to
the Yorkshire owner who told me she'd given up trying to get Trip
Advisor to acknowledge that this deliberate attempt to damage
business and cast aspersions on the owners integrity, was unfair
within it's own guidelines, and remove it. For big businesses with
large guest numbers the odd unfair review is easily masked by more
favourable ones. The result for smaller establishments can be
devastating. Little places like us are only as good as the last
review.

The average
punter doesn't know this. Once the first reviewer has dobbed you in,
so to speak, Trip Advisor then asks you to claim your listing and pay
for the privilege of being able to respond to reviews – more than
£400 a year! What choice does an owner have? You either pay or lose
the ability to manage your own reputation on the forum that's rapidly
becoming the only game in town.

So what do
we get for our money apart from the right to reply? Well not much
really apart from a million ways to create more publicity for Trip
Advisor... badges, posters, certificates, stickers – not sure if
there's a T-Shirt yet! There are mugs. In more ways than one! We do
get to put extra information about our place on our listing but it's
obscure and not obvious where to find it. What you do get when you
alight on our listing - a bit of a cheek when they're charging us –
is assailed by adverts for other inns around us with price
comparisons! Often these are linked to other booking engines like
Booking.com or Expedia. These natuarally favour the big guys since
they're commission based and won't even touch you unless your volume
of trade is enough to make them a bob or two.

Jonnie Falafel contemplates Trip Advisor

Trip
Advisor owns other sites too. Check for the ubiquitous owls eyes at
the bottom of web pages. These are often booking engines where places
like us also pay for listings. No conflict of interest there then! I
can see the day coming when Trip Advisor has all ends of the travel
and leisure industry sewn up good and proper. And we provide the
free content egged on by status rewards like Pavlov's dogs.

Our
reviewers have all been so kind. I appreciate the efforts people have
gone to and reviews have helped establish us. But it can so easily
work the other way. Like lots of people I used to think of Trip
Advisor only as review site a source of information. But you have to
raise a sceptical voice when it's becoming so dominant. What's Trip
Advisor for? It's to profit Trip Advisor of course.

Sunday, 28 July 2013

Okay you win. I submit. This is strictly a one off! I never wanted to be a recipe
blogger. There are enough good veggie recipe blogs out there. Check out my
friend Nicole www.ricetteveg.com. Don't get me wrong, I love to create good meals
and I adore eating them, but the idea of writing a recipe blog? Let's
just say it's not my tazza di te, as they say round here. That measured precision approach to
cooking of conventional recipes bores me into
oblivion. But... enough people have asked for this.

I do
everything by taste, feel and proportion. Not just cooking!! A dash of this a splash of
that and a good tablespoon of the other. Everyone knows stuff like
shortcrust pastry is half fat to flour don't they? They don't? Buy a
cookbook for heavens sake! Guests shyly ask for recipes all the time. (The shyly part is probably because they listen to Paul's tales of my
'chefy stropps'.) But I want to put the record straight. I'm a
pussycat in the kitchen and I purr like Nigella Lawson straight into
camera while licking the hummus I've just scraped from the blender
slowly, delicately, tantalisingly off my little finger and out of my
moustache. Yum. Needs a soupçon more lemon, a smidgen of salt.
Forget grammes and millilitres. The only way I can write a recipe is
like Nigella. If you've read How To Eat you'll get my drift.

So I begin
channelling Nigella. The camera pans across the kitchen and alights
for just a millisecond on my cute Brummie ass in tight maroon cords.
Then it rises the length of my slender sinewy figure. You can see my
nipples through my tight T-Shirt. It finds me beaming, lips
glistening. I run my tongue along my moustache. Turned on yet? Cut to
elevator music as I open the fridge and take out an enormous wedge of
chocolate gateau and stuff it greedily into my cake hole. Scene set
we're off:

For the
white sauce you'll need a small onion - white or red it
doesn't matter, a clove of garlic or more depending on your taste.
Some olive oil. Personally I like enough to kill a beginner. Some
cornflour and some rice or soya milk. Seasoning to your own taste.

If you've
ever wondered what's meant by 'first of all make a roux' here's what
you do. Add a good slug of olive oil to a pan. Add your onion and
garlic chopped finely and cook for a few minutes. You can't be exact, if you like more allium pungency cook less than if you like the
sweeter caramalised taste. Next add your cornflour and stir
vigorously. If your going to make a large proper teacup full of
sauce you'll only need a heaped teaspoon of cornflour. Cook the
cornflour but don't let the mixture burn. Remove from the heat and
gradually add your rice or soya milk. Keep stiring to avoid lumps but
if they form give it a blast with a hand blender to smooth it out.
Return to the heat and boil and it should thicken. Too thick? Add
more milk. Set aside.

Jonnie Falafel

For the
tomato sauce you need a small onion, some chopped olives and
and and capers, some tomato paste and a half bottle of a good quality
smooth passata. Add some oil to pan and heat. Add some chopped onion
and cook until tender. Next add your passata, olives and capers and
if you like extra tomatoeyness a tablespoon of triple concentrate
tomato puree. Cook together for a bout 15 minutes. Done. You can of
course vary the vegetables. If you use zucchini, peppers, mushrooms
they will not affect the cooking time. Chopped harder vegetables like
broccoli or carrot will need longer cooking. If you like herby
flavours you should add the herbs with the onions and cook for a
while before adding everything else.

Make an egg
substitute which is going to bind your filling together and be the
matrix for the main flavours. Crack a couple of tablespoons of
linseeds in a food processor and whizz up with hot water. Set aside
and it should thicken like wallpaper paste. To this mixture add a
good heaped teaspoon of yeast extract (Marmite will do) and half a
tube of tomato puree. Whizz up. It should be thick and brownish.

Tasty Dish 2

The
filling. Fry a finely chopped onion and any finely
chopped.vegetables you like. As before you can add herbs to your
taste. Once cooked turn off heat and leave. In a food processor whizz
up some porridge oats, with some pumpkin or sunflower seeds and add
some walnuts. I like walnuts because of their fatty unctuousness, but Brazils work just as well. Hazelnuts have a strong flavour but you
can use them. Peanuts just taste wrong. Mix these dry ingredients
with your cooked vegetables. Add your egg substitute and combine
well.

Now comes
the assembly. Place filling on the cooked lasagne sheets in sausage
like lines and roll up. Place each roll in an oiled baking dish. When
the dish is full, pour over your tomato sauce then the white sauce
over that. Cover with foil and bake at 170 degrees for about 20
minutes. Remove the foil and bake further until browned. Remove from
the oven, cut into portions and serve sprinkled with chopped parsley.

It's ready for your guests to enjoy. I always save a portion and all the bit's that stick to the dish, cover it with cling film and bung it in the fridge. Then I string fairy lights all around the kitchen in case of night starvation when I get up at 2 am and finish it off along with the rest of the chocolate cake. Gaviscon follows. Ciao a tutti.

Wednesday, 10 July 2013

Last
night was Leonard Cohen's second stop of his never ending tour at
the Summer Festival in the genteel Northern Tuscany city of Lucca.
The first was in 2009. He made it to Piazza Santa Croce in Firenze in
2010.

"Draw us near

Bind us tight

All your children here

In our rags of light"

The Maestro

You know
the story already. Back in 2008 Leonard Cohen took to the road again
after a 15 year hiatus in order to remedy dire financial straits
brought about when his assistant Kelly Lynch siphoned his retirement
fund. When he stepped back onto the stage that spring for those
early Canadian and British dates little did he know that Lynch had
done him – and us – a favour. Reassured he still had an audience,
the experience sparked a creative renaissance realised in 2012s Old
Ideas album and triggered an appetite for live performance that
he claims never to have felt before.

Lucca has
it all – quaint charm, gentility and and sophistication, in spades.
The grand Piazza Napoleone (so named because Napoleon once ruled this
city) is a spectacular setting for the event and as we strolled to
soak up the atmosphere we were fortunate enough to witness the 5pm
sound check. A relaxed Cohen dressed in a loose fitting open-necked
light grey shirt, but still bearing the trade-mark trilby, led the
band through a bouncy I Can't Forget from 1988s I'm Your
Man album and a cover of the recently deceased George Jones
Choices, neither of which he performed that evening. He
stepped back and watched attentively as Sharon Robinson performed a
partial Alexandra Leaving and the Webb sisters gave their
version of If It Be Your Will an outing. Bidding adieu Leonard
explained that they were retiring to the dressing room to get
something to eat before the performance proper.

The Afternoon Sound Check

A brisk
Dance Me To The End of Love opened the proceedings as it has
at every Cohen concert for the past 28 years. In terms of song
selection the opening set has remained largely the same since 2008
with the addition of a couple of numbers from Old Ideas.
Someone was asking if this wasn't getting stale, but the anorak in me
is forced to point out that Bird On A Wire has reverted to
it's original lyric, Leonard having dropped the pleading “don't cry
no more/Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry no more/It's over/It's
finished/It's been paid for” which has been a feature of live
performances for a couple of decades or more. Musical or lyrical
variations provided enough to keep me interested even though the
songs remained the same. Special mention has to go to Lover,
Lover, Lover which has an astonishingly powerful new groove and a
very committed vocal from the man himself.

Of course I
was thrilled to hear the Old Ideas songs since I'd never
witnessed them in performance. Amen was faithful to the album
with Leonard extemporising for emphasis. He had not merely “seen
through the horror”, but seen through “this whole damn horror”.
The sublimely intense Come Healing - which has reduced me to
tears on occasion - was marred by some totally inappropriate audience
participation. What sort of ego needs to whistle loudly in the middle
of the subdued harmonies? Why did some chat through the entire
evening, or spend their time texting or even talking on the phone? At
one stage a guy in front of me with his back to the stage had a
screamed conversation with someone in the VIP bleachers at the back
and was more or less shouting into my face. I just don't get it.
Dylan has the right idea. At recent shows he's asked audiences to put
away these devices and allow everyone to experience the concert
directly first hand. Maybe I'm just getting old and irritable, but
audience milling and churning, which is a feature of these types of
shows, really got in the way of my enjoyment of the first set.

The energy
levels and the volume went up in the second set. Some of the less
committed audience members had disappeared leaving those with an
attention span, and a touching Sisters of Mercy was a live
first for me. I'd witnessed a full band version of Chelsea Hotel
#2 at Florence three years ago, here it was an acoustic
incarnation. I'd forgotten Heart With No Companion had been
resurrected. It took me by surprise. The brisk-paced country shuffle
arrangement has always seemed at odds with the lyric to me (“the
nights of wild distress/Though your promise counts for nothing/You
must keep it nonetheless”), but it was so perfectly enunciated you
couldn't doubt it.

I'm Your
Man allowed Leonard to be court jester, offering to wear an “old
man's mask for you” and doing some outrageous mugging while making
his plea, “if you want a father for your child” pointing directly
into the front row. His own weakness in this little story of
power-play was made clear in the repeated, “you know damn well
you can/I'm your man” On the subject of mugging and movements that
echo meaning it's worth mentioning here that earlier during a solid
performance of Everybody Knows that he placed the back of his
hand beneath his nose when he got to, “Everybody knows you live
forever/When you've done a line or two” making the cocaine
reference abundantly unambiguous.

Tonight
Hallelujah was so subdued I could tell that some people didn't
recognise it until he got to the chorus and then it slipped by
subverting what had become a sing-along on previous tours. People are
so used to power house versions of this song that it's almost

universally
misunderstood as an anthem of praise. He combined the original lyric
with the later re-write so I think we got most verses of both
versions. Quite how, “Love is not a victory march/It's a cold and a
very broken Hallelujah”, or “It's not a cry you hear tonight/From
someone who has seen the light” or “Even though it's all gone
wrong/I'll stand before the lord of song/Nothing on my tongue but
Hallelujah” translates in some folks heads as celebratory is
mystifying. As puzzling as his reputation for writing depressing
songs.

I'm not really a fan of Sharon Robinson's melodies on Ten New Songs, but her rendition of Alexandra Leaving tonight is the epitome of style and dignity. Her voice is incredible and she holds the crowds rapt. I can't find words to signify just how intense it was.

Sharon Robinson

We got our
chance for a sing-along with So Long Marianne. The audience
belted out the chorus and Leonard stood with a broad grin and
remarked on our “pretty singing”. He really seemed to enjoy
leaving it to us. Going Home, featured in the encore, had
Leonard lingering over the opening, “I love to speak with
Leonard/He's a sportsman/He's a shepherd/He's a lazy bastard
living in a suit” and the audience lapping up the self-deprecating
humour. He wrapped up the evening unsurprisingly with I Tried To
Leave You. “Here's a man still working for your smile”, the
sonorous bass intoned. This was my fifth Cohen concert in as many
years and I realised I was working for his and it was more in
evidence than ever. After his usual benediction “May you be
surrounded by the blessing of family and friends and if you are not,
may the blessing find you in your solitude”, we all headed for
home happy.